


Echolocation

by yarroway



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-24 02:08:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6137716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yarroway/pseuds/yarroway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only way to fix the present is for House to revisit the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a loose sequel to Countenance of the Heart. It is not necessary to read that story before reading this one.
> 
> Many thanks to the awesome srsly_yes for beta duty and lots of patience.
> 
> Disclaimer: House, M.D. belongs to David Shore, Universal Television, Heel and Toe Productions, and a lot of other people who are not me. I'm not making any money from this.

It was a wintry Monday evening, and Thirteen was making another of her insipid arguments for cystic fibrosis in what was clearly a Budd-Chiari case when House’s phone rang. He answered it quickly, eager to drown her out.

“Yeah."

“Hello, dear.”

Suddenly he wished he were listening to the sexy bisexual again.

“Hi Mom.” The DDX screeched to a halt. They were all listening. House went into his office, waving at them to continue their argument without him.

“Honey, I finally ordered the headstone and they just installed it. I’m going to get the family and some friends together to go out to the grave to visit your father. We haven’t all been since the funeral, and you know how your father loved Christmas."

His father had indeed loved Christmas. In House’s boyhood they’d always had a big tree covered in lights and tinsel, gone around with the other military families singing carols, and all that heartwarming insincere family crap. The bastard was dead and he was still ruining the holidays. House thought he might make Wilson have one big long sex marathon on the twenty-fifth just to piss off his dad. Not that his dad was around to piss off anymore, but somehow just knowing that he would have disapproved was enough.

“When can you be here? Bring James too if you like. I know you’re both busy, but we’ll work around your schedules. Any time during the season would do.”

“I can’t talk now,” House temporized. He didn’t want to turn her down outright. It didn’t take a genius to know she was lonely and wanted an excuse to have her family around her. He just didn’t want to go. “I have a patient.”

“It’s eight o’clock at night, Greg.”

"Yes, but the ungrateful bastards don’t quit dying at five.” Okay, he’d exaggerated. His patient wasn’t anywhere close to dying, but she didn’t know that and the general principle was true.

“You know I’ll only call back.”

Fine then. He might as well get this over with. “I’m not coming.”

A pause. “I want you here for this. I miss you.”

She could push his buttons like no one else, and that hint of vulnerability in her voice got him every time.

“I have to go. They’re waiting for me,” he said, and hung up. The Boomtown Rats sang about Mondays in his head as he went back into the conference room.

“Fun time is over. Put in a shunt and then start him on anticoagulants. Keep an eye on his liver function. We got him early enough that he should be fine. Thirteen, you can stay and monitor him— and tomorrow I want you to give me five reasons why it’s not CF.”

“If you’re so sure it’s not cystic fibrosis, why don’t you convince me yourself?”

House made a sad face. “Because I still cling to my faith in your ability to think rationally. I should be in…sometime in the morning. Be ready.”

“What did your mother want?” Foreman asked, trying to distract him from Thirteen.

“That doesn’t even get an A for effort,” House mocked on his way out the door.

 

*************

House clipped his cane to the bike and got on. He thought about stopping at the deli on his way back to pick up some soup for Wilson, who was home nursing a cold. Wilson had specifically requested it, and House had agreed.

This morning it hadn't seemed like a big deal. In the last year he’d rediscovered that having someone to consider in his plans wasn’t an entirely bad thing, that live-in company could be tolerable, even pleasant. But now the thought of going home to Wilson with his runny nose and damp tissues and demands for soup was oppressive, suffocating.

House brought the bike to life and headed for the open road.


	2. Chapter 2

_...two weeks later..._

Wilson stood at the stove making breakfast. If the way to a man’s heart were through his stomach, he should have been making bread with hagelslag. But they were out of those little chocolate sprinkles, and Wilson was far too tired to attempt anything more involved than oatmeal. Besides, he didn’t honestly think it would matter.

In the last two weeks, something had gone very wrong between him and House. There were random pages, calls, and visits throughout the day, designed to test where he was and who he was with. There were the nights House didn’t come home until after he knew Wilson would be asleep. Last Friday morning he’d awakened to a note saying House had gone to a poker tournament in Toronto, and later that night he’d gotten a call from a very drunk House claiming to be in bed with another man.

“We have an open relationship,” Wilson had replied. “You can test me all you like. I’m not going to fuck around.”

“Good,” House had replied, and done something to make his bedmate give a long, loud moan.

Wilson hadn’t slept the rest of that night. Something had broken between them. If he didn’t fix this soon it would spiral out of control, taking his hard-won happiness with it. And he had been happy. They both had. They fought, they made up, they argued and hurt each other, no different now than it had ever been. But over the last several months the bond between them, the thing that kept them coming back to each other no matter what, had strengthened and blossomed. They played more, and they laughed more. Wilson had rarely felt so in love, and House, who refused all sentimentality, had cut way down on the pills--as good a declaration of happiness as Wilson could wish.

Maybe it was the one year anniversary of their relationship that had changed things, or maybe the Budd-Chiari patient had somehow hit a nerve. All Wilson knew was that House had been antsy for a month, and impossible for the last two weeks. He sighed, and stirred brown sugar into the oatmeal.

He heard thumping steps coming into the kitchen.

“It’s almost ready,” Wilson said, as House came up behind him.

“What is that?” House asked in a disgusted voice, peering over his shoulder at the pot.

“Oatmeal. And if you’re a bad boy, you won’t get any."

“What do I get if I’m very bad?” House asked lewdly.

“ _More_ oatmeal.”

House smacked Wilson’s ass and sat down at the table.

“No, that’s all right, House. I’ll get the bowls myself. You sit down. You’ve had a hard morning sleeping in and molesting me.”

“It’s not sleeping in if I’m going to get to work on time,” he complained.

Wilson brought breakfast to the table and began to eat. He looked over after a moment and saw House watching him.

“What?”

“We need to talk,” House said in a thin voice.

If he could do nothing else for them, he could inject a little humor. “You finally bought that cute little puppy in the window?”

“No.” House said with the ghost of a smile.

“You want to take me to the Pride Parade and you bought us matching lavender tuxes? Or rainbow, either way."

“No,” House responded hollowly.

The joke had fallen flat. Lately they all did. “Well, all right then,” Wilson said, turning serious. “What?”

“I met a guy.”

Wilson paused, forced air into his lungs. “Cute?” he asked.

“Not like that,” House said dismissively.

Wilson met his eyes, allowing his disbelief to show. He was pretty sure the worry beneath his easy words showed too.

House shook his head. “I didn’t lie to you about guy in Toronto. I wouldn’t lie to you about this. Why would I?”

Wilson took a breath. This didn’t sound like a break-up.

“The guy I met is a P.I.”

“You’re spying on me?” Wilson asked. He wished he were more surprised, but with the way things had been going between them lately, he really wasn’t.

“You’re cheating on me.” House tossed a photograph down on the table. In it Wilson and an attractive young woman were wrapped around each other.

Wilson sighed in frustration. “First of all, we have an open relationship. I can’t cheat on you--”

“It’s cheating if you don’t tell me about it.”

“That was never part of our agreement, but I’ll grant that you let me know when you strayed.”

It was ironic that House was the one worried about fidelity, when it was Wilson who had been forsaking all others for thirteen months now. Generally Wilson’s eyes began to wander no later than the year mark, though he’d been able to keep his dick in his pants for much longer in the past. To House, then, who knew him so well, a year proved nothing. Wilson was beginning to wonder if any amount of fidelity would be enough to quiet House’s insecurity.

“Second of all, that,” Wilson said, pointing at the woman in the photo, “is my cousin Leah, who you’ve met twice, and who I told you at the time I had lunch with.”

“Is she related to that cousin of yours I treated seven or eight years ago, the one who turned out not to be in your family at all?”

Wilson flung up his hands in sheer frustration, then whirled and walked away. Behind him, House began to yell.

“We’re not done! Wilson!”

Wilson got to the dresser and opened his underwear drawer.

“Packing already?” House asked, coming into the bedroom behind him. He was no longer yelling. He looked sick.

Wilson took the photo album out of his drawer and flipped quickly through the pages, looking for the group shot from last year’s Thanksgiving.

“Here,” Wilson said, holding out the album. “It’s the same woman. We sat three or four people down from her. Her husband is the tone-deaf orthodontist. I guess you don’t remember because you were too busy worrying about me at the time. At lunch I was hugging her like that because, and I didn’t tell you this, she’s six weeks pregnant and terrified she’s going to lose this one too.”

House sat heavily down on the bed. Wilson tossed the album on the mattress beside him.

“Next time just ask me,” he said as he left. He slammed the front door shut behind him.

Wilson was half way to the car before he realized he was too angry to drive. He came back into the apartment—their apartment— and began energetically scrubbing the dishes. His thoughts were going in circles. Things had been so good for so long, but now it was all falling apart and he didn’t even know why. Nothing had changed recently to cause this. Wilson had sold his condo and moved in permanently nine months ago. House had spent the first few months of their relationship shoving him at every woman and man he might be attracted to, but Wilson hadn’t even been tempted to see anyone else. He’d stopped having lunches with nurses entirely, he’d even been downright rude to an intern, all so House wouldn’t get the wrong idea.

Now it seemed they were doomed anyway. This time he hadn’t even done anything to deserve it.

He heard House enter the kitchen, but he didn’t turn around. House came up behind him and hugged him in unspoken apology. Wilson’s anger drained away. He dropped the soapy, oatmeal-covered scrub brush and turned in House’s arms to hug back.

House jerked away, his face a frozen mask.

 _He doesn’t want me to hug him,_ Wilson thought.

House didn’t want him anymore, and all this talk of infidelity had been nothing more than an excuse to argue. To leave.

Wilson opened his mouth to say something, anything, but words abandoned him. He could only stand there staring stupidly as House walked out of the apartment and his world ended.

The sound of the bike’s engine faded into the distance. Wilson wondered how many more times he’d ever hear that sound. Then he shook himself. If they broke up now, he’d lose not only the best relationship he’d had in years but also his best friend. He wasn’t letting House go without a fight.


	3. Chapter 3

Wilson woke the next morning to an empty bed. He’d tried to corner House several times yesterday, but each time House had evaded him. He hadn’t returned home last night either.

_It’s almost over. And I don’t want it to be._

Then he heard the soft, familiar snoring coming from the living room. House was asleep on the couch, his blanket half kicked off. He looked old and worn out. Wilson wished he knew what was making him so unhappy. He pulled the blanket up, settled it around House’s shoulders. He had to figure this out now, fast, before it was too late for them.

Wilson retreated to the bedroom. Moving as quietly as he could, he dressed and dragged the safe out from under their bed. He’d had it for years-- a place to keep important documents that was secure from fire, water, and the wrath of God. He only hoped it was proof against the wrath of House.

He removed all his papers and put them under the mattress for safekeeping. Then he went outside. He drove to Dunkin Donuts to get breakfast. Returning, Wilson got the jack and wrench from his trunk and removed one tire from each of their vehicles. He put the tires, for lack of anyplace better, in their bathtub. He secured all the tools back in the Volvo’s trunk, and put the lug nuts in the safe. He turned off their cells and beepers and put them in there too. He added their wallets and all the spare cash lying around. He unplugged and disassembled the landline.

Finally, guiltily, he hid House’s canes. Then he combed through the apartment to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. He took all the wrenches out of his trunk and put them in the safe as well, then locked it and hid the keys.

When he had gotten everything ready and washed the grease off his hands, Wilson opened the box of donuts and set out House’s coffee. Then he grabbed one of the pill bottles House had stashed around and shook it by House’s ear.

House stirred. Wilson rattled the pill bottle again, then returned it to its hiding place and sat back innocently to wait. He picked up the latest Journal of Clinical Oncology. When House grunted and moaned himself upright, Wilson looked over the top of the journal.

“Good morning. I got breakfast.”

House didn’t reply. He looked exhausted. Wilson wondered how much sleep he’d been getting lately. House looked around blearily, probably trying to remember what he’d done with his cane. After a moment House limped heavily in to the bathroom. Wilson watched his halting movements with an intense, burning shame. Still, there was nothing to be done about it now.

Wilson began his mental countdown. He’d guessed ten seconds once House hit the bathroom, but given how tired he was, Wilson thought it might be closer to fifteen.

“Wilson!”

Nope, ten.

“What the hell did you do?” The question echoed down the hallway. House came back out. He looked surprised, and Wilson’s guilt was momentarily eclipsed by pride. It wasn’t often he could baffle House. “Why are there tires in the bathtub?”

Wilson wordlessly held out House’s coffee cup, and House took it. Then suspicion crossed his face, and he put it down, swiping Wilson’s instead. Wilson took House’s in exchange.

“Whenever you want to bathe, let me know. I’ll put them somewhere else and clean the tub out for you so you can soak, or shower, whichever you like.”

“Where’s my cane?”

“Oh,” Wilson said in mock surprise, “has it gone missing?”

“Wilson, where’s my cane?” House asked again, a deadly serious note in his voice.

“I’m sure it’ll turn up.”

House favored him with a nasty look. He did a quick inspection of their apartment, and ended by looking out the front window at their cars. “Have you lost your mind? You think you can keep me a prisoner here? You think I won’t just put the tire back on my bike and leave?”

“You’re not going anywhere. I disabled all the cars. You can’t put the tires back on without tools or lug nuts. Our phones, cells and beepers aren’t working, I’ve locked up the keys, cash and credit cards, and you’d have to walk out of here without a cane to get anywhere. You can either go out screaming for help and have me arrested, or you can have some breakfast and talk to me.” Wilson held out the box of donuts. “Munchkin?”

“You can’t lock up my phone. What if my team needs me? Someone could die!”

“You think I don’t know you don’t have a case? Besides, as you yourself once said, I care more about you than about a patient.” He had Schwartz covering Oncology this weekend, and House’s team didn’t have a patient. Wilson wasn’t entirely certain he’d have cared if they had. That should trouble him, but it didn’t. The hospital had other doctors. He and House had only each other.

“I do have a case,” House said.

“No you don’t.”

House rolled his eyes. “Admitted late yesterday. Four-year-old girl with neuropathy, seizures and tachycardia. I have to get to the hospital this morning and I have to have my phone.”

Wilson considered that for a moment. House wouldn’t ordinarily have remembered his patient’s gender unless it was medically relevant, and with those symptoms it wasn't.

“No.” House was a lying manipulative bastard, the case was fake, and even if it wasn’t he had a team of highly skilled doctors to treat her.

“You’re endangering the life of my patient!” The indignation rang true. Wilson nervously reminded himself that House was a gifted faker.

Wilson folded his arms, pretending a confidence he didn’t feel. “Then talk quickly.”

”I’ll find my stuff.” House said, abandoning the argument. He started throwing things out of the closet.

“It’s in the safe,” Wilson supplied helpfully as a sneaker sailed past his head. “Under our bed, like always.”

House stopped searching. “Keys,” he demanded, holding out his hand.

Wilson shrugged. “I can’t seem to remember what I did with them. I’m sure I’ll find them eventually.”

House went into the bedroom, presumably to check Wilson’s story. Wilson sipped coffee while House figured out that he couldn’t pick the lock.

House returned to the living room, face set. “Give me the keys.”

Wilson smirked.

House’s composure began to fray. “Give me the damn keys.”

“Not till you talk to me. Something’s happening with us. I need to know what it is so I can fix it. And since whenever I try to handle things like an adult you avoid me, we’ve come to this.”

“If I wanted to talk, I’d talk.”

“I’m not going to let your childishness endanger our relationship!”

“I’m childish? You’re holding me prisoner and I’m the one who is childish?”

“You’re the one who keeps running away!”

“So you’re going to lock me in my room until I do what you want?”

A faint warning bell began to chime in the back of Wilson’s head. “I just want to talk,” he said placatingly. “That’s all.”

House nodded. “I don’t,” he said, grabbed his jacket, and walked out. The slam of the door behind him reverberated through the apartment.

Wilson’s clever plan had turned into a spectacular failure. Torn between going after House and giving him a chance to calm down, he chose to delay long enough to collect his things, wrap his coat and scarf tightly around himself, and walk to Greentree, the old German café down the street. That was where House would be. They were good enough customers that Enrique, the Saturday morning barrista, would serve House even barefoot and cash-free. Besides, at this hour there was nowhere else for him to go.

Wilson bounced nervously up the three steps to the café door and went inside. Five patrons sat at the small tables listening to soft jazz. None of them was his aggravating boyfriend.

“Where is he?” Wilson asked Enrique. House was upset enough to do something stupid, and when House did that it was on a colossal scale, like sticking knives in electrical outlets.

“You’re looking for your friend? He didn’t come in. You want to wait? The Americano is fresh.”

Wilson leaned an elbow on the glass counter and opened his wallet, glad he’d gotten cash just yesterday. “Listen, I won’t tell him you said anything,” he said, and handed over a fifty to show he meant it. “Just tell me where he is.”

The bill disappeared. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Dr. Wilson. Your friend is not here. I haven’t seen him since Thursday.”

Wilson held out another fifty. “We had a fight. I have to find him.”

Enrique didn’t take the bill this time. “If I had seen him, I would tell you.”

 

****************

 

Wilson checked the alley behind the record store, the stoop of the bar, even the Laundromat. Time was wasting and House was out in the winter.

“Where are you?” Wilson asked aloud, checking the aisles in the bodega. “Where the hell are you?” Then he stopped dead in front of the Gummi Bears. House would have gone to the hospital. It was miles away, he’d never make it, but he would have headed in that direction.

Wilson sprinted for his car, grabbed a few things from the trunk, and ran down the street. It would have been quicker to drive, and Wilson cursed his idiocy in removing the tires from their cars. If he ever did this again he was going to chain House to the damn bed first. House hadn’t taken any pills yet, and the cold and the stress of their fight would make his leg pain worse. He’d have had to sit down somewhere. Somewhere nearby.

Wilson hurried. House had been out in the cold air too long already.

A few minute’s frantic running brought Wilson to a little park, nothing more than a square of grass with benches where people came to feed the pigeons. House was there, sitting huddled in his jacket. Wilson stopped, bending over to catch his breath. What the hell was House thinking, wandering around in December in nothing more than thin cotton pajamas and bare feet?

Wilson walked over, panting. He held out the cane. House was still for a long moment, looking down at the pavement. Wilson could see him shivering. Finally, he took the cane. Relieved, Wilson took off his coat and draped it over House’s shoulders. House shrugged it off immediately.

So, this was going to be difficult. “Don’t freeze just because you’re angry at me.”

House wouldn’t look at him.

Wilson sat beside him. “There’s nothing I did to you that you wouldn’t have done to me.”

House said tightly, “I wouldn’t have waited two weeks to do it. And I wouldn’t have let you walk out the door.”

“So why are you angry with me? I thought you’d be pleased. Eventually. After the yelling part was over."

“I’m not.” House didn’t sound angry any more. He sounded defeated.

Okay, Wilson could understand House needing to do things his own way. But usually this was exactly the sort of gesture House wanted, even if he got mad about it when it happened. He wasn’t mad now, though. Wilson replayed their argument in his head. Had there been something in House’s voice beyond anger? Had there been—hurt?

Was there something else going on?

“Not what?” he asked carefully. House didn’t reply. “Not pleased?” That seemed obvious, but it also didn’t seem to fit. “Not angry…or not angry at me? Are you angry with someone else?”

House was staring down at his cane now, but unhappiness was clearly etched on his face. He was shivering harder.

“I don’t want to talk,” House said miserably. “Can’t we just go home?”

“Yeah,” Wilson said, his throat suddenly tight. He’d agree to anything, if it meant House would come out of the cold. “Here.” Wilson held out the boots he’d retrieved from his trunk. House didn’t take them.

“I’m fine,” House said, getting up.

Wilson shook his head. “You’re freezing. Would you put them on?”

House made no response, just stood pale and shivering, probably waiting for Wilson to decide it didn’t matter enough and give up.

“Please,” Wilson added.

House sighed. “Leave it. Your boots won’t fit me anyway.”

“They’re your size,” Wilson told him impatiently. House looked at him for the first time since he’d left the apartment.

“You have winter boots in my size?”

“I keep them in the trunk when the weather gets cold.”

House looked amused now, just a little. “Why?”

“Just in case.”

“In case we get caught driving in a blizzard? In _New Jersey_?”

Wilson shrugged. “You know I like to be prepared.”

House held out his hand imperiously. Wilson surrendered the boots. House looked them over, running his fingers along each seam, touching the laces, testing the warm lining within. “Aren’t these those reindeer reserve things you were salivating over?”

“Caribou.”

House sat down on the bench. “They’re the same species,” he said, pulling on the boots and tugging the laces taut.

Wilson sighed. House could be a font of useless trivia when he wanted to distract someone. "So, what do you think? Will they shame your sneakers, Imelda?”

“I think you bought fancy overpriced boots for me that you had to be pretty sure I’d never wear. You didn’t do it to manipulate me, because you threw them in the trunk of your car without even telling me about them, and you know I never drive your car so I wouldn’t find them on my own.” House stood, wiggled his toes. “Cozy. What else do you have in the bottomless trunk?”

Wilson frowned, trying to remember. “Umm…water, some food, general emergency supplies, tools, flashlight, crank radio, first aid kit, a change of clothes for both of us, and two sleeping bags.”

House’s expression lightened. Wilson relaxed a little, knowing House was pleased that he carried supplies just for him. He put his coat back around House, over the jacket, and this time House slipped his arms into the sleeves, buttoned the front, and tightened the sash.

Warm boots and emergency stashes were the sort of tangible proof House could believe in, and Wilson wondered why he hadn’t thought of staging a breakdown just so House would look in the trunk and find all that. He was getting slow in his old age.

They started walking home. In spite of the cane, House was still limping heavily.

“Don’t you have pills in your pocket?” Wilson asked. It felt weird to be suggesting that House take drugs, like the fundamental order of the universe had shifted, but he was clearly in pain. House didn’t answer, but a moment later he reached into his jacket, and pulled out the familiar vial. He took a pill, walked on in silence.

“You could ask for this back, you know,” House said, indicating Wilson’s coat, which he’d buttoned and belted tight around himself. “But you won’t.”

“I’m warm enough,” Wilson said. He had a hat and heavy sweater on, and his scarf, and he was warm from his run. He’d be fine, and House was still shivering.

“My mom called,” House said out of nowhere, when they were a block from home.

When he didn’t continue Wilson asked, “Christmas invitation?”

Silence. Then, “She wants us to come visit the grave for Christmas.”

“Uh—why?”

“She finally got the headstone and she wants a big trip so everyone can go see it and cry.”

Oh. That explained some things. “She didn’t happen to call two weeks ago, did she?”

“About that.”

Yeah. Which meant part of this mess between them was about Blythe—or, more likely, John.

“And you waited till now to tell me. Have we missed it?”

“No, we haven’t missed it because she’s waiting to schedule it till I give in and say I’ll come.”

“Well, that’s very…” Wilson trailed off, unsure how to finish his sentence. Considerate? Foresighted? Manipulative? Annoying? He hoped Blythe wasn’t going to ask him to kidnap House again. “She hasn’t called me, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“I didn’t want to tell you,” House said quietly, pausing on the corner to talk. “I knew you’d say that I have to go to support my mother, that I should respect my father’s memory,” his voice rose “that I act like a spoiled child and I should be grateful for the--” he stopped, checked himself, continued more quietly. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be grateful for, actually. I only know I’m not.”

That was more than House had said about his father since they day of the funeral. It wasn’t a subject House usually allowed to come up. Wilson didn’t like hearing his own words come back at him like this. They didn’t sound right anymore. House was indeed being ungrateful and immature, but Wilson didn’t see why he should be made to go when he obviously didn’t want to. He’d forced House to go to the funeral to get some closure. Now he had House back in his life in ways he hadn’t even dreamed of before, and he wasn’t going to jeopardize that for anything. Besides, House and Blythe were both adults and could keep their arguments between themselves. Wilson resolved not to get drawn in this time.

“That’s okay,” he told House. “However you feel, it’s okay. But if you do go I’d like to go with you.”

He thought he caught gratitude in House’s eyes. They resumed walking, went inside. Wilson stripped off House’s outerwear, watched him settle himself on the couch and tucked a blanket around him. He went into the kitchen and poured milk into a saucepan. When it was warm enough he began adding pieces of chocolate.

“Are you being understanding because you’re worried about us, or did you mean it?” House asked from the other room, making Wilson smile because there was no force in the universe that could stop him from pushing and poking and prying at things, and that was one of the things he loved about Greg House.

“Both,” Wilson said as he stirred the mixture with a wooden spoon. “This is bothering you. More than I really understand.” He turned off the heat and poured the hot chocolate into two mugs. He brought them into the living room, handing one to House and setting the other on the coffee table. He watched House cradle the mug in his hands and take a careful sip.

“I know you don’t want to talk," Wilson said. "But if we’re through, I need to know. If you’re hanging on to this because you’re afraid of losing our friendship—I’d understand, but this isn’t the way to keep it.”

House nodded. “You want to know where you stand. That’s completely reasonable.” He looked up; his eyes were shadowed. “I don’t know.”

“You never don’t know what you want."

House reached across the empty space between them and tapped Wilson’s forefinger with his own. His hand returned to the mug, restlessly tracing its rim. “I don’t want to lose this, but I don’t think I can afford the risk of keeping it.”

Wilson swallowed. “That’s a risk you’ve been taking for over a year, and until recently it never bothered you. The risk hasn’t changed. So what has?”

“It always bothered me.”

Wilson’s chest tightened. This was a break up, after all. His heart gave a loud, painful thump. “I don’t want to go.”

“I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to do something harder: wait.”

“For what?”

House looked away. “I don’t know.”

Waiting. Wilson could do that. He could do whatever it took to keep this thing between them limping along, if he had something to hope for. But he didn’t want to do it if there was no hope left at all. Been there, done that, not going to do it again.

“Do you still love me?” Wilson asked steadily. He braced himself for the answer.

“Could you get further off the subject?” House replied, shifting in his seat.

“I know talking about feelings isn’t something we do, but--you asked me to wait. I need to know I have something to wait _for_. Do you still love me? I won’t abandon you if you don’t. I just need to know.”

House’s stare bored into him, weighing, assessing. “Love was never our problem,” he said finally.

Wilson had an overpowering urge to hug House for that, but he knew his touch wouldn’t be welcomed. Instead he let his pleasure show in his face, in his eyes, felt it bleed into the air around him. House’s expression lightened.

“Then I’ll wait,” Wilson promised.

House nodded. “Let’s go.”

“Go?”

“It’s Saturday,” House said. “You were right about me not having a patient and you obviously cleared your schedule. We’re going to the bastard’s grave.” He stripped off his pajamas, tossed them to the chair, and headed to the bathroom. When he saw the tires in the bathtub he stopped. Wilson saw him shake his head. When House looked back, he was almost smiling.

“Get the damn tires out of there. And don’t touch my boots. I’m keeping them.”

At least he liked the boots.


	4. Chapter 4

House didn’t really want to go to Lexington, he just knew he needed to. So, fine, he was going. Didn’t mean he wanted to think about it. There’d be time enough for that when he got there. He distracted himself with hospital gossip while Wilson drove them to the airport, got last minute tickets, and found a Starbucks where they bought stale, dense scones and coffee harsh enough to strip the varnish off a floor. He distracted himself further by throwing up the scone in the men’s room before the flight, and he continued his streak by loudly discussing airplane crashes and FAA violations in the waiting area. If he got arrested then it wouldn’t be his fault he couldn’t make the trip.

Before takeoff House made the flight attendant get him a blanket, and then later a pillow, both of which he wadded up and tossed at his feet. After they were airborne, he looked around for fresh victims. The young couple across the aisle said they were on their first trip together, and House was just going to start in on them when Wilson leaned over and, very quietly, offered to do five of House’s clinic hours if he would just shut up.

“Ten,” House demanded. “That makes it an even week.”

Wilson narrowed his eyes and countered with seven, on the grounds that House never actually worked all ten anyway.

“I’m not negotiating. Take it or leave it.” Wilson hesitated, so he added loudly, “I think I’m feeling airsick.”

Wilson accepted hurriedly.

“I’m going to sleep,” House said, pleased that he’d both gotten rid of a week’s worth of the clinic and gotten Wilson to give in. He yawned. He hadn’t slept more than a few hours at a time in the past two weeks. House reclined his seat and closed his eyes, but he couldn’t relax. He heard every little sound, the hum of the engines, the talking of the passengers, Wilson’s rustling through his carry-on and the subsequent slow page turning of the book he’d brought. House shifted position, unable to get comfortable. The seat was covered in scratchy fabric and the overhead light was stabbing at his eyes.

House reached up and clicked the light off. Wilson huffed but let it go without comment. That stank. It meant Wilson was feeling sorry for him, and House despised that.

“Give me your coat,” he demanded.

“Use your own,” Wilson said.

“Yours is warmer,” he insisted, because now that Wilson had refused, he could try to make him give in. Being given the coat would have been another sign of pity. Cajoling it was simply winning. House liked to win.

“Use the blanket, then.”

“Too scratchy,” House complained. Nothing would do now but Wilson’s coat over him. He didn’t see what the big deal was about that. Wilson had all but forced it on him earlier, and that meant it should be his for the taking.

Wilson sighed and spread his coat over House.

“Cold?”

“Not anymore,” House told him, burying his face in camel hair. It smelled faintly of Wilson.

“Now I’m cold,” Wilson complained.

House toed the blanket towards him and was rewarded with an annoyed sounding sigh.

****************

They touched down in Cincinnati. Wilson was paranoid about missing their next flight, so House got to entertain himself by stopping at a Cinnabon in the terminal and looking ever so slowly over the choices while Wilson tapped his foot and checked his watch and clenched his teeth. House didn’t even really like cinnamon rolls, but at least it was something to do. Once he opened the bag, though, the sweet smell of sugar was cloying, and his stomach threatened to rebel. He ate anyway, hoping that putting food in his stomach would calm it down.

Cincinnati was entirely too close to Lexington, and throwing up in airplane bathrooms totally sucked. He put on earphones and listened to someone’s idea of music the rest of the way there, using the volume to drown out the hard, rapid pounding of his heart.

They flew into Kentucky, descending into rain. Grey sheets of it swept down the highway as Wilson drove their rented Toyota through town and House made up stories about the people who lived in the homes they passed. They found a McDonald’s, and Wilson ate lunch while House fidgeted.

“Should we call your mother?” Wilson asked, tossing the last of his salad into the trash.

“No,” House answered. He wasn’t here to see her. She might ask questions neither she nor he wanted him to answer.

“You’re sure?” Wilson asked again.

He probably thought it was strange to come all this way and not see Blythe. House felt the weight of secrets pressing down on him. There were too many things he couldn’t tell his mother, things he hadn’t told Wilson and never would. What would he say? “Hey, Wilson, my childhood sucked?” Wilson probably already knew that. The details didn’t matter, and talking about it was pointless. House’s childhood had been wildly better than many other kids’ anyway. There was no reason to carry on about it all now. It was past, it was done, and it hadn’t been nearly as bad as House had thought as a kid. It was embarrassing that it even affected him any more. It didn’t usually, not really, but lately—lately it was all crashing over him again, a dark wave that threatened to wash away everything he’d built. He wasn’t going to let that happen. He had come to see his father’s grave and toss all this crap out of his life.

**************

The sky had cleared when they pulled into the cemetery parking lot. House fidgeted with his seatbelt. He didn’t want to get out. He’d done nothing but avoid thinking of the past the whole way here. Now that they had arrived, now that the radio was off and there were no strangers to mess with or puzzle out—now it was harder to pretend he hadn’t come to remember.

They could just turn around right now and drive, head out exploring or even go home. But House knew if he did that he’d be back here sooner or later. In the meantime, things with Wilson would only get worse. If Wilson knew, he’d have a field day analyzing why House thought that this place could resolve their problems. He couldn’t explain why himself, he only knew that their fucked up relationship and his fucked up father had something to do with each other.

He got out of the car, moving carefully on the muddy ground. Wilson followed. House glanced over at him.

“Wait here,” he ordered. He didn’t want an audience for this. He started to walk. With each step his reluctance grew, until he was on the verge of turning back.

For some stupid reason he was afraid. If he could delude himself into believing in ghosts, he’d be worrying about being haunted, but this was nothing so gothic. His ghosts were no more than old memories never quite forgotten, old lessons carved into him, heart and sinew and bone. _Don’t be an idiot,_ House told himself impatiently. _Drop the poetry._

The grave should be over the rise and a few yards to the left. The wind blew colder as he limped on.

_I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to see him,_ part of House thought.

_Stop whining,_ another, more practical part of him replied. _What you want is irrelevant, because this is something you need to do. Shut up and walk._

House was shaking inside, a kind of weird abdominal epilepsy. He wondered if Wilson was watching, wondered if his jitters were visible.

There. He could see the grave that held his father’s body.

A bird shot up, fluttering right past his head. House jerked, startled. He shifted his weight, automatically using his cane to compensate, but it slid in the mud. He fell. Pain flared. He lay face down, curled around his traitorous thigh, trying not to scream while pain shrieked through every nerve in his body. Dogs were barking somewhere nearby, baying and growling in a weird counterpoint to the pain.

_Get up,_ he told himself in his father’s cold, stern voice. When had he begun berating himself in his father’s voice?

_It hurts, Dad,_ a part of him said.

_It’s only pain. That’s no reason to lie in the mud. Get up._

House tried. A thousand rusty nails pierced his leg, and he lay back down with a gasp.

_It won’t hurt any more standing up than lying down. You’re here to sort yourself out so you don’t destroy this thing with Wilson. Get UP, you self-pitying coward. Get up and walk._

House uncurled slowly, fighting for breath over the crush of pain. He got to his knees just as Wilson jogged up. House waved him off. Wilson waited a few feet away, feigning unconcern while House climbed laboriously to his feet.

“You’re a mess,” Wilson said, waving a hand at the filth on his clothes. House stepped carefully to drier ground and then began getting the mud off his cane by knocking it against the bottom of his shoe.

“Bastard’s dead,” he said. “He wouldn’t know the difference if I showed up naked and did the hula.” He inspected his cane and frowned. Wet muck clung to the bottom, making it too slippery to use.

Wilson held out his hand, “Let me try.”

Hell no. House wasn’t going to surrender his cane. He scraped it against the nearest headstone instead, leaving a streak behind.

“House!” Wilson said in shocked protest.

“Dead!” House said in exasperation, pointing at the grave whose occupant neither knew nor cared about the mess. He continued scraping the sides and bottom of his cane against the headstone, leaving it filthy and his cane safe to use. Wilson had that expression he got when he was amused and trying to hide it.

House liked doing that to him.

He liked doing lots of things to Wilson. He really, really didn’t want to lose what they had. But given the choice between pushing Wilson away and having Wilson choose to walk away, House preferred to push. At least then he could fool himself into believing that left to himself, the other man wouldn’t have gone at all. How self-destructively, preemptively stupid was that?

“You okay?”

He’d been staring into space too long. He hurt, and he didn’t want to think about this any more.

“I thought I told you to wait in the car,” he said, forestalling Wilson’s concern, his questions, and his insane need to talk. He swallowed a pill, stood leaning heavily on his cane while he waited for the pain to abate.

“I thought maybe you might want a friend,” Wilson said.

House’s throat closed up. He looked away, looked down, and saw his boots. They were covered with muck. He’d ruined Wilson’s gift when he fell. House swallowed. He should apologize to Wilson for destroying the boots, but he knew he never would. He wasn’t going to get worked up over a stupid pair of fucking boots that no one in their right mind would care about anyway.

House turned and walked slowly towards his father. Here. This was it. This was what he’d been dreading.

There was nothing there.

Well, there were things, if you counted a new headstone, a buried corpse, grass, and a sea of graves. But that was all. The things House feared he carried in his head. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t a cold and moist December day under a cloudy sky. He waited.

_Come on. Come ON._

But House’s memory was stubbornly unhelpful. He could recall the taste of his first girlfriend’s tongue in his mouth, the one question he’d had to guess the answer to on the MCATs, and every single disease beginning with the letter L, but he couldn’t bring his past to light.

Because he didn’t want to.

Wilson stood watching him, patient, worried but trusting him to have some kind of personal epiphany that would save them. House snorted. He couldn’t save anyone. He could barely even walk.

House looked away. He didn’t want to see that hopeful look on Wilson’s face. He stared at the ground instead, at the cold, ungiving earth.

“You never were very helpful,” House said, scuffing the dirt with his shoe. “Damn you anyway. Get the hell out of my life. This is your fault.” He kicked the ground again, harder. “Damn you!”

Memory came, then, of his visiting his grandmother’s grave as a boy, of kicking at the grass that grew there and grinding it beneath his heel, of his father’s disapproval, “Don’t you disrespect Oma that way, young man.”

“I’m not,” he’d answered his father. “She’s dead. She doesn’t know what I’m doing.”

His father hadn’t asked why he was destroying the grass, and House hadn’t told him how angry he was to see something so green and frivolous growing there, on the spot where a part of his heart had been buried.

“You never gave a damn how I felt,” House said aloud. “You never gave a damn about me.”

“Greg,” his mother would chide, when he said things like that. “Your father loves you. Someday you’ll understand.”

But he didn’t. He had never understood. If there was some secret, some code to all that had happened, House had never cracked it.

He remembered his mother’s excuses, could still hear her giving them. “He wants you to grow up to be a man he can be proud of.”

Because he’s not proud of me now, had been the obvious corollary. But that had gone without saying. John House’s boy was a rebel with a big mouth, and everyone knew it. His father had only been happy when House did what he wanted, thought what he wanted, felt what he wanted. And when House didn’t, because he was his own person and not a copy of his dad, everyone acted like there was something wrong with him. Even as a child House had known this, and chosen not to conform. He was therefore never surprised at what happened when his mom was away. He was only surprised it didn’t happen more often.

“I hated you,” he told the grave. It didn’t care. He must have shrieked those words at his father a hundred times, but he hadn’t cared either. Of course, Dad had probably been pretty used to hearing it by then. How often had House heard kids say the same thing to their parents over the years, when the parents had forced them to take medicine or hold still for a procedure? He guessed parents just got used to that. But those parents did that out of love, because they knew better than their children what was important. Of course Dad had thought he knew best too. The only, unforgivable difference was, Dad had been wrong.

If his father been less of an ass, maybe House wouldn’t be either. Maybe he’d know how to have a normal relationship.

“This is for your own good, son. Now get in.”

“If you can’t behave in the house, you won’t be allowed in the house. Get out.”

He was shaking again. The wind had picked up. It was so cold, and he couldn’t stop hearing Dad’s voice.

“You have no appreciation for the good things in your life. Let’s see how you like being without them.”

“Don’t speak to me that way. Go to your room. You’ll stay there till we can trust you to talk properly to people.”

House remembered cold, and anger, and his own stubborn refusal to back down and how it had all led to round after round of disappointment, rejection, and pain. Neither of them had known how to give in, how to love, or how to forgive. House didn’t think he ever would. Which made him no better than the man he'd despised.

Enough! Time to get off this heartwarming little trip into the past. He turned, seeking a distraction. Wilson was hovering a few feet away, hands hidden in his pockets, trying hard to seem fascinated by the neat rows of headstones.

_He loves me,_ House thought. In whatever context, friends or lovers, Wilson had always loved him. No matter what else had happened, he’d never doubted that. Love had never been their problem. He’d taken it for granted, used it and twisted it, but he had never, ever doubted it. He’d wanted solitude before, but right now all he wanted was Wilson beside him.

Wilson, as if sensing he was being watched, looked up. He stared at House for a moment, then made his way over. House felt calmer as Wilson neared, as if his mere presence were anxiolytic.

“I hated him.”

“Why?” Wilson asked.

House thought about that for a moment. “Because sometimes he hated me.” Wilson drew breath to argue. House wasn’t interested in listening to Wilson defend a man he barely knew for things he was ignorant of, so he cut in, “That’s not the point.”

“Sigmund and I would beg to differ,” Wilson said easily.

House hated how this was so removed for Wilson, so easy to talk about and draw conclusions from when he knew nothing and understood less. What could James Wilson know of any of this? Sometimes he and Wilson were so close that they could almost read each other’s minds. Then there were the times like now, when there was a chasm between them. Wilson couldn’t be blamed for being clueless. He didn’t understand. House didn’t want him to understand.

“The point is, why did he hate me? And why only sometimes?”

“You don’t actually believe your father hated you, do you?” Wilson asked, serious now.

“Everyone hates me eventually.”

“Yeah,” Wilson deadpanned. “I’m just holding out for the twenty-fifth anniversary tie pin and then I’m gone.”

“Come on,” House said, changing the subject before Wilson could notice just what a painful one it was. “I want a drink.”

“You have someplace in mind, or do I just drive until we pass a bar seedy enough for you?” Wilson asked.

House fished in his pocket and pulled out a well-creased brochure. He flicked it at Wilson, who picked it up one handed.

“The bourbon trail,” Wilson read aloud, amusement and disbelief in his voice. “’Now you can experience the rich tradition and proud experience’…SIX distilleries?!”

House smirked.

“You realize these are just tastings? You’re not actually supposed to get smashed.”

As House walked past him towards the parking lot, Wilson asked, “You would really rather visit a distillery than your mother?”

House left the question hanging in the air behind him. Wilson caught up.

Why, House asked himself as Wilson pulled wipes out of his bag and House got off the worst of the dirt, had his father hated him only sometimes? It was as good a place to start as any. As much as he’d wanted answers, House was almost as happy to have a clear question. Anything was better than the snarl of anxiety he’d been caught in. It didn’t even matter if he was stuck on the wrong question, because it was a starting place, and from here he could find other questions and as he answered those, eventually, some of this old crap would resolve itself and quit screwing up his life.

They got into the car. Wilson drove slowly, looking for the turns on the brochure map.

It was more accurate to say he had hated his dad than to say his dad had hated him. His father’s anger had been reactive. House had told Wilson once that he’d been pushing people away since he was three. His father had simply been his first victim. When House had hurt him enough, he’d retaliated. It was a simple human response. Anyone would do it.

House glanced over. Wilson gave him a worried look and turned his eyes back to the road.

Anyone would do it. Everyone hated him eventually.

_Oh fuck._


	5. Chapter 5

House was a human cyclone. He was destruction incarnate. He hunted and harried Wilson, allowing him no respite from taunts and jibes, giving no mercy. He insulted everything he could think of, derided Wilson’s taste in women, clothes, cars and music, announced his three failed marriages to everyone on the Woodford Reserve distillery tour, and made hilarious fun of the old Amber shrine. Wilson tried vanishing to the men’s room, but House tracked him down and found him deep in conversation with the pretty teenage boy who was working in the gift shop. House reduced the brat to tears and sent him running while Wilson’s face got progressively redder. Wilson twisted and turned, snarked and ignored, but there was no escape from House’s invective.

When they were back on the road House insisted Wilson find a place he could get a decent slice of pizza, and spent the trip complaining about Wilson’s driving, his singing voice and the prissily pristine state of his car until Wilson pulled onto the shoulder and turned on the flashers.

“What the HELL is wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with _you?_ ” House countered.

Wilson pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “You want a fight? Fine. Let’s hear it. What have I done now?”

“It’s not what you do,” House told him earnestly. Something coiled tight inside him rubbed its hands in glee. “It’s who you are. The caring was dripping all over my shoes. We should fly back into LaGuardia and stop by Danny’s group home on our way back. You and your brother can bond slitting your wrists together while I have a beer.”

Wilson went white.

House had gotten in past the armor and put the knife right through his heart. He’d meant to, and he wasn’t done yet. “Aw, are you going to cry now?”

For a long, terrible moment he wasn’t certain what Wilson would do. He fought back an urge to say he hadn’t meant it.

Wilson took an uneven breath. “Here’s what we are going to do now. You are going to shut up all the rest of the evening. Because if you don’t, so help me, I am going to lose my temper and do exactly what you fear most—leave your sorry misanthropic ass right here.” Wilson waved his hand out the window at the lonesome, muddy road. They’d passed no cars or homes for quite a way, and House didn’t relish walking in the cold and muck. He was pretty sure he could fend Wilson off with his cane if it came to that—but he didn’t want it to come to that.

He’d lost the battle, but the war remained. House turned his face back to the window. He didn’t say a word the rest of the way to the airport, listening in silence as Wilson talked the ticket agent into putting them on standby for the next flight.

There was an hour still to wait. House leaned his aching head against the Plexiglas, taking some of the weight off his aching leg. A plane sat at their walkway, a heavy silver bird streaked with dirt, grounded.

Wilson wasn’t talking to him. House wanted to open the bourbon he’d bought at the distillery, but the continuing queasiness in his stomach made that a bad idea. He decided to check out the terminal and see if he could find a bar. He could at least have a soda and watch a game.

“House,” Wilson called after him.

House couldn’t decide whether to answer with “go to hell” or “fuck off,” and decided to stick with passive-aggressive silence instead. Wilson was the one who didn’t want to talk, the one who rebuffed every overture House had made in the past half hour. Screw him, then. Let him talk for a change.

“Don’t go too far,” was all Wilson said, and House was at once annoyed and disappointed. He took the bottle out of his carry-on. The hell with his stomach. The hell with everything. If he puked, he was going to aim for Wilson.

****************************

House spent the first flight reading. He got into a minor skirmish with Wilson, turning the overhead light off and on. Ultimately Wilson gave up and it stayed on, but by then they were in Cincinnati, where House delayed them by requesting a wheelchair. Between the fall and the cramped leg space on all the flights he didn’t think he could walk far. The delay pissed Wilson off, so it was like an incredible twofer to wait in the airplane seat for the kind flight attendants to assist the aging cripple while beside him Wilson’s blood pressure climbed. To cap it off House refused to allow Wilson to push the chair, even though he was slow at moving it himself and the wheels hurt his hands. Wilson seemed to take this as a provocation, but he was wrong. House didn’t intend to depend on anyone, and if that meant he squealed slowly through the terminal stopping every ten feet to rub his hands, it was fine by him. If the high-pitched squeaking of the wheels should happen to bother Wilson, so much the better.

The second flight was worse, with his leg screaming, the fretful crying of a baby, and Wilson walled behind his silence. House could see him fuming, but couldn’t provoke him into reacting, not even after a series of ‘accidental’ elbowings. He had to settle for telling the pretty flight attendant with the drinks that Wilson had been brain damaged during an episode of auto-erotic asphyxiation gone wrong and could no longer speak.

He thought Wilson’s mouth twitched at that.

They collected the Volvo from short-term parking and began the long drive to Princeton. House turned the radio on as loudly as he could stand to drown out Wilson’s silence. Twenty minutes out of Princeton, when House’s exhausted body wanted nothing more than to lie down in his own bed and sleep for a week, Foreman called to say they had a new patient.

They parked in the near-empty hospital lot, beside a tree whose bare branches were littered with crows. They looked down at House with black, beady eyes. House had never seen so many in one place and turned to comment on it to Wilson, but he was gone. He disappeared into the lobby; an angry swirl of winter coat belled out behind him.

House limped into his office, aching worse than ever. Taub held out the chart, which he ignored. He threw the marker to Taub and sat heavily in a chair. Moving with effort, he propped his leg up on another chair.

They were staring at him. Morons. His leg wasn’t diagnostically interesting, and his pain wasn’t for their entertainment.

“Focus, people. Fourteen year old male admitted to the ER complaining of abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting, and confusion. Afebrile. Confusion persists in spite of 24 hours on fluids...”

*************************

House wasn’t at all sure Wilson would even speak to him. That made it important that he not seem to be nervous, so he threw Wilson’s office door open with more than his usual panache.

“I come bearing gifts,” he announced, because while he would never apologize even if he were sorry, which he wasn’t, he also wasn’t above bribery. He put the coffee he’d brought Wilson on his desk and sat down on the sofa.

Wilson glanced up from his paperwork. He looked pissed.

“Two sugars, no drugs. I need a consult.”

Wilson held out the cup. “After you.”

House took a drink and put the cup back down. He held out the chart. “Seriously. Kid’s been tossing his cookies for two days now, and I have no idea what’s wrong. Well, I have several ideas, just none I’m sure of yet. They already ruled out all the obvious stuff.”

Wilson took the chart. He frowned as he flipped through the pages.

“Labs are inconclusive. No abdominal CT?”

“They’re doing it now. I had to send Foreman back to do the tox screen, too. Idiot asked the father for permission and of course he said no.”

Wilson nodded. “Let me see the results when you get them. It sounds more like toxins than cancer, but it’s worth a look.” He took a sip of the coffee, and opened his file cabinet, rearranging manila folders.

House started to ask why Wilson was messing with his own filing system, but decided that he didn’t care about whatever hijinks his assistant had been up to lately. As he got comfortable on the couch, a large, angry bear of a man entered the office.

“You Doc House?” he growled at Wilson.

Wilson hesitated. Without thinking House stood, moving between them. “I am. And you must be the cretin father of my patient.”

The man’s face contorted in anger. Then a tree trunk slammed into House’s face. He heard yelling, and then the floor smacked him, hard.

Wilson was shouting, and House tried to get up to see what was wrong. Pain spiked through his side and head when he moved. Other people seemed to be there, a gaggle of voices and ugly shoes, and there was running back and forth while House fought to remain conscious, and then a familiar pair of shiny shoes came and crouched beside him. Something cold was placed against his head, and the throbbing diminished.

“Come on,” Wilson said, and reached an arm down to him. House blinked at it, unsure of what he was supposed to do. It vanished, and then something was around him, pulling at him, and then he was on the couch. Blackness fell.

When sight returned, Wilson was crouching before him. “Take these,” he said, holding out some pills.

House didn’t know what they were and didn’t care. Slowly the pain faded and the world slid into place. Wilson was sitting in his chair with his feet propped up on the couch, watching him.

“New rule,” Wilson said. “Only piss off the moms.”

House snorted. “Women are the deadlier sex.”

“That would suit you just fine, wouldn’t it?”

House rolled his eyes. Wilson was channeling Freud again.

“You did that deliberately,” Wilson accused. “You baited him. You didn’t even give me a chance to calm him down. You wanted him to hit you.”

House scoffed. “He came in looking for a fight. You weren’t going to be able to calm him down, and you knew it. You were going to tell him you were me. You were going to take the punch for me.”

“Is that why you did it?” Wilson asked disbelievingly. “Were you--protecting me?”

House looked away. He wasn’t going to answer that.

“House, you just spent the last several hours trying very hard to hurt me, you’ve spent the last month being impossible, you…” he trailed off. He pointed at the parking lot. “Do you have any idea how-- the worst of it wasn’t what you said. I could deal with it if you lost your temper and said things you didn’t mean.” Wilson shook his head. His voice was breaking. “But you intended to hurt me. It was conscious, it was planned…and then that man came in, and for some stupid reason I was going to protect you, and then--you stepped between us. You goaded him into hitting you so he wouldn’t hurt me. And now,” Wilson shrugged, a full body gesture with both arms. “Now I don’t know what to think.”

House’s throat tightened. He was out of words.

“Come on,” Wilson said, his voice softening. “I’ll take you home. The father’s been banned from the hospital and the boy is stable. You need to rest.”

“No, I have a patient. I have to—“

“He’s _stable_ , and they’ll call you if that changes. You can do the DDX on speakerphone if you have to. You’re going home.”

House got gingerly to his feet. His whole body hurt, and he felt briefly dizzy. “Did he hit me in the head?”

“In the face and abdomen,” Wilson told him, easing House’s coat on and buttoning it. “You have quite a shiner.” He reached up to touch the bruising on House’s face.

“I’m fine,” House said, quickly batting Wilson’s arm away. “You can stop pretending.”

“Pretending?” Wilson asked, putting on his coat and picking up his overnight bag. “You think I’m pretending?”

“I’m still the same ass you were so angry at five minutes ago. I’ll get a cab.”

Wilson’s sighs were a language unto themselves. This one was at once exasperated and worried with an undertone of ‘you-aren’t-getting-it.’ “I can admit you for observation or take you home for observation. Your choice.”

“No loss of consciousness, no nausea, no retrograde amnesia, no confusion. I’m fine!”

“You weren’t fine two minutes ago!” Wilson yelled back. “You were dazed and disoriented.”

“You’d be dazed and disoriented too if I hit you with a…a…something heavy that you hit people with.”

Wilson didn’t answer, just stepped closer, hands on his hips, waiting for House to decide. If he chose to be admitted, Wilson would probably camp out at his bedside the entire time. If he were going to have to deal with the mother-henning, he’d rather do it from the comfort of his own home.

“Let’s go,” House said, inclining his head toward the hall.

Wilson hovered close to his side all the way to the car.


	6. Chapter 6

Even leaning on his cane, House was listing pretty seriously by the time they got home. Between the lateness of the hour and the cumulative effect of a few weeks of insomnia, Wilson wasn’t surprised. He tucked an unresisting House into bed.

Wilson set his alarm for three hours and settled in for a nap. Just because he didn’t think House had a concussion didn’t mean he might not be wrong. House had a history of head trauma, which could make a concussion worse. Damned if he was going to take any chances.

Twice in the next six hours Wilson awakened House and assessed his mental status. Twice he let House fall back asleep. Both times he was well enough to convince Wilson that, while House’s brain might have been rattled by the impact, it hadn’t suffered any real damage.

Wilson was therefore taken completely by surprise in the morning when House threw him out.

“What did you say?” he sputtered, wiping tea off his chin.

“You need to move out,” House repeated.

Okay, perhaps last night would have been better spent in studying up on his House 501 notes, because apparently the exam was today. But there were some things about House that never changed. House did not want him to leave, not really, he was just pushing to see what Wilson would do. Maybe he’d ace this exam after all.

“No.”

House’s expression tensed. The blue eyes were wary.

Wilson put down his cup. “Truce until tomorrow.”

He couldn’t possibly take anything House said right now too seriously, and he had to either watch him or admit him. Leaving him alone was not an option. On the other hand, it was early for post concussion syndrome to start, and House hadn’t had a concussion anyway. Probably. But Wilson was a conservative doctor. Experience had taught him to anticipate the worst.

House rolled his eyes, following Wilson’s train of thought with uncanny accuracy. “You think I’d have to be brain damaged to break up with you?”

“Something like that,” he answered, trying not to smile.

House shook his head, muttering about egotism as he walked away.

The lack of fight was worrisome. House seemed restless and fatigued all through the morning, but refused to go to bed. In the afternoon he nodded off on the couch for an hour. Wilson retreated silently to the bedroom to answer email, leaving the door ajar. House hadn’t been any grumpier than usual, but he was quiet and reserved, a sure sign of trouble.

The team called several times, providing updates on the patient, who’d begun to have tremors. That afternoon Foreman mentioned that he was going to need to interview the father.

“Be ready to duck,” was House’s comment.

On speakerphone, Foreman’s smug self-righteousness echoed off their apartment walls. “I don’t think I’ll have a problem. It’s amazing how helpful people can be when you treat them with common courtesy.”

“Thanks, I’m feeling _much_ better,” was House’s reply.

Cuddy called in the late afternoon as Wilson was putting away the laundry, ostensibly to check on House but in reality to bitch him out for provoking yet another patient's family member into hitting him. Wilson didn’t know precisely what she said, but at the end of the call he heard House’s clipped, “I am a human being, therefore by definition I’m behaving like one.”

It occurred to Wilson that this happened a lot. Patient’s families would hit House, or something else bad would happen, and people would blame him for it, and he would let them. Wilson had always thought it was because House preferred people to think of him as a bastard, but maybe House thought he deserved that treatment, or maybe he just didn’t expect anything better.

It was a troubling thought.

Wilson folded every bit of clothing carefully, taking the time to think this through. He had been assuming House was reacting to something going on between them, but this entire mess had really gotten going when Blythe had called about John. House obviously thought that his father had something vital to do with this or they’d never have gone to Kentucky, but Wilson had no way to know what.

House had been provoking him deliberately. Did he want Wilson to break up with him? Was this all some kind of test? Or—or was any of this planned out at all? House could be the most difficult and aggravating man on the face of the planet, but he was usually more straightforward than this in pursuing his agenda. What he was doing now was reacting rather than acting. He was scared. Maybe, Wilson realized, this didn’t have much to do with him and their relationship at all. Maybe John was the reason House was afraid to trust him, to trust them and their future.

Wilson remembered what House had said in the cemetery. That his father had hated him sometimes, and that everyone hated him eventually. Wilson had tried to joke him out of the mood, but if that were something House truly believed…

He’d thought House had gotten past the fear stage of their relationship ages ago. He’d been wrong.

****************************************

That night House was a little tired, but he didn’t want to try to sleep. In his pre-Wilson days he would have stayed up all night. But Wilson was there, always there, watching even when he wasn’t hovering right at House’s elbow. Tonight he knew Wilson wouldn’t go to bed until he did, so at ten he got changed and lay down. He felt Wilson settle in beside him, moved minutely away, and listened to his heart pound as Wilson’s breathing shifted from wakefulness into sleep, leaving House alone.

House wanted to sleep, but his thoughts kept fluttering around. He didn't want to think anymore, not about anything and absolutely not about the past or this mess with Wilson. But refusing to acknowledge something didn’t mean it wasn’t there. His racing pulse told him that. He had been an idiot to delve back into all this old garbage, because now it wasn’t going to just blithely go away again when he wanted it to. Damn it.

_Shut up,_ House told himself, irritated at his inner voice. He’d be unable to sleep again if he couldn’t find a way to silence it. House rubbed his leg and got up. He’d been popping Vicodin for the last couple weeks, but it hadn’t helped much, and ever since he’d fallen in the graveyard and been knocked to the floor in the office the pain had been worse.

He started for the tub, intending to have a long, hot soak. He caught sight of the bathtub gleaming white under the fluorescent lights, and stopped. No, on second thought a bath was the last thing he wanted.

House paced the living room for a long time, hoping to tire himself out physically. Eventually he gave up and lay back down, feeling the minutes tick towards morning. He must have fallen asleep at some point, because he woke panicking when their upstairs neighbor dropped what sounded like a full pound of marbles onto the floor.

Beside him Wilson slept on peacefully, oblivious.

House lay back down, listening to the calling of a screech owl that had somehow made its way to Princeton, and tried to rest. It was impossible. After a long time House rose. It was a little after three. He turned on the television, wrapping himself in his blanket against the cold. Once, before they’d moved in together, he could have called Wilson on the phone. He’d have invented an emergency, or just demanded to talk. But now that Wilson was here, in the next room, he couldn’t do that any more. Instead he grabbed a ball from his backpack and began bouncing it against the bedroom door.

It didn’t take long. Wilson, always grumpy when awakened, came out pissed. He caught the ball, put it firmly down on the coffee table, and started back to bed. Before he could get there, House picked it up again. It flew right passed Wilson's nose.

Wilson gave an angry groan. "You’re an ass." He turned to go.

House threw again, as hard as he could. The ball hit the bedroom door so hard it shook, bounced off, and knocked over a lamp before it came to rest in House's stinging hand.

Wilson snatched the ball from House and tossed it to the other side of the room. It hit the television stand and knocked the remote onto the floor, where the remote's back flew off and the batteries scattered, before rolling off to parts unknown. Wilson pivoted, hands on his hips, face flushed and eyes flashing with anger. House braced for the tirade he knew was coming. He could hear it now, _inconsiderate… selfish… childish… rude._

Wilson opened his mouth, drew a breath—and checked himself. His anger drained visibly away. When it was gone he came and sat way too close.

House got up quickly, abandoning the blanket and moving over to the piano. It was colder there. He stood over the instrument, hands braced on its lid.

“House?”

He had to close his eyes because the force of Wilson’s concern was too great. Wilson was supposed to be angry. House could handle punishment. He deserved it, expected it, knew it, inside and out. This—this gentle consideration—he had no idea what to do with it.

“I want you to move out,” House said.

There was a brief pause, then, “No.”

“I mean it,” he said. “This isn’t working. I’m sick of you.”

“No you don’t, yes it is, and no you’re not,” Wilson said.

Emotions were sucking him down, swallowing him whole. “You slept with him!” House accused. It was a shot in the dark.

“Now you’re just getting desperate,” Wilson said. “Who are you talking about anyway?”

“Him!” House gestured impatiently. “The--boy in the distillery bathroom.”

“Yeah,” Wilson said, “You caught me. I’m an overweight middle-aged man whose boyfriend is freaking out so naturally I decided to go have anonymous restroom sex with a kid who for some reason wants me and swears he’s three days over eighteen, because what I really need to make my life complete right now is to be arrested for sodomy and statutory rape. In the South, where they’re known to go easy on that sort of thing.”

House clung to the piano. “I want you to go,” he said again. Wilson might fall in love at the drop of a hat, but he didn’t do casual sex these days. House knew that but it didn’t matter because he’d never really believed his own accusation. He just needed Wilson to leave, and making him angry was the best, easiest way to do that.

“No you don’t.” Wilson had come up beside him, and it was just House’s luck that there wasn’t a trace of anger on his face. “You’re asking me for the things you fear, not the things you want. You’re trying to get me to punish you. What have you done that you think you need to be punished?”

The question brought him to his knees because he didn’t know; he’d never known what he’d done to deserve punishment. House could only kneel in silence, fingers clenched on the piano, cold with old pain and old fear.

Wilson looked away, fingers dancing in time to his thoughts. “You’re trying to control this, and you can’t, and it’s driving you nuts. This is your way of trying to make me hate you now. So it won’t hurt as much when I, inevitably in your view, do it later.”

House braced himself for whatever was coming.

Wilson crouched beside him. There was an openness on his face that House rarely saw. “Last year I had to choose. I could go through all that alone and maybe not make it, or I could accept your help. I chose you, and we ended up here. Now it’s your turn. Let me in or throw me out. Choose.”

Wilson leaned forward, a hand on the piano bench to steady himself. The brown eyes were intense, unyielding.

House held his breath. A hand cupped his cheek.

“Choose me.”

Inside House the beast of memory raised its muzzle. It gave a long, mournful howl, and he was back there, where he never wanted to be, miserable and alone.

“House.” Wilson’s voice, warm, concerned, called to him.

Dark, worried eyes swam into focus. Wilson's hand grasped his shoulder. House took a breath, forced his mind into the present. He never wanted to go back there again, though he feared part of him would be stuck in that sinkhole forever. But what he wanted was here, and now, and it just might be worth the risk.

"I'll miss you," House said, his voice almost inaudible even to his own ears.

“What are you talking about?”

House swallowed. "Nothing lasts forever. One way or another, you'll leave."

Wilson shook his head. "I suppose eventually one or the other of us will die. Isn't that all the more reason to make the most of the time we have?"

"I don't want to lose you. I don't want to trust you. I don't want to be alone."

"You're not losing me. Throwing me out will make you more alone, not less. And you already trust me, as much as you let yourself trust anyone."

"What makes this arrangement any more permanent than your marriages?"

Wilson's brows drew together. He studied the wall intently. "My wives all filled the same hole in my life. They gave me someone to take care of. Someone to love who loved me back. But with you, this…" Wilson waved his hand back and forth between them, "It's different. I need you."

"Yeah," House said bitterly. "You need me. Until the next Amber comes along."

Anger sparked in Wilson's eyes. "Is this about Amber?"

"No," House admitted. "It's about the way you fall head over heels and push me aside."

"No it's not," Wilson said, "it's about the way you think of yourself. I'm not sure whether you're more scared to be proven right, and be alone because you really are unlovable and universally hated, or to be proven wrong and accept that people really can love you. My God! You might have something to live up to!"

"Shut up."

"You might even have to acknowledge that there's a shred of happiness in your life."

"Is there _any_ way to make you shut up?"

"I can see why that bothers you," Wilson said, motioning wildly. "Once the secret that there's a heart beating inside your tin chest gets out, well, pfffht! Who knows where that could lead?!"

House slammed his hand down on the piano. "I don’t want to be disappointed!"

Wilson jabbed an accusatory finger at House. “You'd rather be miserable than risk losing happiness? You take risks that no sane person would consider, and now you shy away from a gamble that people take every day? One that you yourself have taken before?”

House lowered his voice. “I can’t afford the loss." The next words slipped out before he could stop them. "Not any more. Not you.”

Wilson started to speak, stopped, blinked sudden moisture from his eyes.

“I love you,” he said, as if it answered anything.

“Today,” House countered. “You love me today.”

“And every day for most of the years I’ve known you,” Wilson added.

Okay, well that was quite a while. That was—actually a good argument.

Wilson’s gaze slid away, and then back. “Why do you think your father hated you?”

House rolled his eyes.

“It’s relevant” Wilson insisted, “and you know it. You said before that he hated you, but only sometimes. That everyone eventually hates you. Obviously, you think that I’ll hate you someday too. It was your mother wanting you to go to the grave that started all this. So. What makes you think he hated you?”

“Because he did.” House answered, angry that Wilson would disbelieve him, but not surprised. There was no proof. There never would be.

“But only sometimes,” Wilson added, not arguing. “Why did he hate you at time A and C but not B?”

“Because I was a loud-mouthed, know-it-all brat. Because I was a lousy son and he was a lousy dad and maybe he knew even then that he wasn’t my dad at all. Because he had a need to control me and I had a need to not be controlled. Because I pushed him to it.”

Wilson nodded as if he’d expected that answer. “So not only do people hate you, but it’s your fault that they do?”

“Isn’t that what you’ve been telling me all these years?”

“No,” Wilson said. “All these years I’ve been telling you that actions have consequences. If you ever heard me say anything else, you weren’t listening.” Wilson stopped then, head cocked, as if listening to the echo of his words. “You not only think you deserve it, you think _I think_ you deserve it too.” He sighed and shook his head.

“For once in your life, listen to me." He put both hands on House's shoulders and squeezed. "I’m here because--it's where I want to be. You can piss me off, and you can hurt me, but you can’t make me hate you. The only choice you have is whether to end this or to let me in.” Wilson’s mouth crooked up. “Even if you’re right, and it’s only for a little while.” He loosed House. “It’s up to you.”

Wilson got to his feet and stood very close, watching. The distance between them was trivial. House tried to stretch out his hand and touch Wilson’s wrist, but it was like trying to move through quicksand. His fingers wouldn't move. He watched himself fail, watched as Wilson turned and walked away.

House stared stupidly after him for a few moments, wondering how he’d managed to destroy everything in just a few short weeks.

He glanced at the clock. It was very late. Unless he wanted to be stuck here tomorrow he needed to get to work in the morning, and if he was going to go to work he needed sleep. House went to bed and settled into a restless doze.

Some unmarked time later he felt the mattress dip as Wilson climbed in. He wished Wilson would scooch over and spoon against his back. He could imagine it, could practically feel those arms coming around him, holding him. That would be okay. Then House could make fun of him for snuggling, and Wilson wouldn’t let go, and…

…and it was an appealing fantasy. Back in the real world Wilson lay on his back, inches away, and far too far to reach.

House shifted uncomfortably. The draft from the window was frigid, and he'd left his blanket in the living room. House pulled the sheet up to his chin. Part of him was stuck, bogged down in events that had been over decades ago. But it was never over.

Wilson got up and left the bedroom. He was going to sleep on the couch, House realized. The thought made his chest ache. As alone as he'd been with Wilson in the bed, it was lonelier to have him sleeping in the next room. House squeezed his burning eyes shut. This brutal honesty was what he'd wanted, what he'd worked for. He should, he told himself savagely, be _happy._

The floorboards creaked. House opened his eyes, too curious not to look. Wilson was carrying the comforter. He spread it over House.

Softness covered him. The draft stopped. House felt his muscles begin to unclench. For the first time that night, he was warm. Wilson settled back down beside him.

House felt himself sinking into sleep. His last waking thought was that he'd been wrong.


	7. Chapter 7

The first thing House was aware of when he woke was his skin. It felt dirty and scratchy. He sat up and ran his hands through his hair. He should check in with Wilson, try to fix last night’s fuck-ups.

Screw it. He felt filthy. He needed to wash off the grime from the last few days. If a soak and a scrub didn’t work he knew a hooker who would paint him with honey and then lick it off. Wilson could watch. He’d get off on that.

House sank into the hot water with a sigh of relief. He soaped up and rinsed off, reveling in how good it felt to simply be warm and clean and barely in pain.

Last night had proven to him just how wrong he was about Wilson. He had been an idiot, he realized, as he rinsed the shampoo out of his hair. Yes, he was afraid of Wilson turning into another Stacy, who’d love him, betray him and then leave him. He was even afraid of Wilson turning into his father. But he wasn't either of those people. Since when was he scared of _Wilson,_ who'd seen House at his absolute worst time and again and yet kept coming back, who knew how to hurt him--had known for years and never once done it out of cruelty. Wilson had stuck with him even when he'd been as hurtful as he could force himself to be. If they could survive that, they could survive anything.

House dried off, dressed, and carried a bowl of Cheerios into the living room. It was time to find a way to let Wilson know they were back on good terms. House didn't know quite what, yet, but he'd figure it out.

Wilson came and sat stiffly beside him, fingering the remote. “Here,” he said, and handed it over. He’d snapped the pieces back into place. Wilson started to rise.

House thrust his cane out across his chest, blocking him. “Test drive,” he explained, and powered on the set. Wilson settled back, sitting a whole cushion away. House flipped through channels until Wilson leaned back into the couch, sitting a little more naturally. House rewarded him by leaving on a Baywatch rerun, because he knew Wilson had a thing for those little red bikinis. House shifted around until his knee brushed Wilson's. He took a throw pillow and tucked it under his leg.

“I bought that cushion,” Wilson remarked, a little lilt in his voice. “If you throw me out I’m taking it with me. Also all my cookware. And the sheets.”

“You’re taking the sheets?” House grumbled. “I picked those sheets.”

“At my suggestion, and my cousin’s store, where you got a steep discount because of me. And you bought them, it goes almost without saying, with my money.”

“I chose the color!” House replied indignantly, and slid over into Wilson. “You were going to go with,” his voice curdled, “ _ecru_.”

Wilson scooted to his left to give House more room. “They were cream. There’s nothing wrong with that. Lots of people have cream sheets.”

“Lots of people are boring,” House replied, sliding further over.

Wilson moved again, and House did, until Wilson was wedged uncomfortably between House and the arm of the sofa.

“Do you mind?” Wilson asked.

“No, I don’t,” House replied mildly. He took Wilson’s arm in his, got his head positioned just right on Wilson’s bicep, and sighed in comfort. “I don’t mind at all.”

Wilson leaned tentatively against House. “Are you back?”

“Partly.”

"Then—are you okay?"

House paused. "Partly."

House was afraid that Wilson would want to talk, but instead he slipped his arm from House’s grasp, and draped it around his shoulders. Gravity shifted somehow, grabbed him and dragged him down. He lay with his head in Wilson’s lap, with one of Wilson’s hands resting on his chest. House grabbed the hand, pressed it to his sternum. _Stay_. Wilson’s fingers tightened fractionally in response. _Yes_.

Something teased the edge of his mind…something about the patient. He squeezed Wilson’s hand again, and watched his fingers tighten in response. Then loosen, as the delicate muscles relaxed. Tighten. Loosen. Action. Reaction… The patient's confusion was a reaction to the medication the stupid drug rep mom had been slipping him to cover the symptoms of the GERD she and her husband didn’t want to admit their boy had.

“Where’s my phone?” House asked, sitting up. “I know what’s wrong with the kid.”

Ten minutes later his team had the boy on his way to recovery, and House had reached a decision.

“I’m going in,” he told Wilson.

Wilson raised both brows. “I thought the case was solved?”

House nodded. “He progressed to tremors. I want to see if I can get him to make a full recovery. Kid’s fifteen, he’s a small forward-“

“He’s fourteen, and a goalie,” Wilson corrected.

House frowned. “He’s young and into sports. He--” House paused, putting the pieces together. “You’ve been busy with me all week. You have no idea how old the kid is.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Wilson said with a smirk. “You were saying?”

House rolled his eyes. Wilson just couldn’t admit it when he was beaten. “I was saying that the kid should have a chance to keep on playing. He’ll probably also have a better chance at dating if he isn’t shaking like a strung out junkie.”

Wilson grabbed his coat, smile still playing around his lips.

“What?!” House snapped.

“Nothing,” Wilson said innocently, handing House his backpack.

House slung the pack onto his back. “Spit it out.”

Wilson put on his coat. “You’re being nice, is all.”

“I’m being thorough. You’re coming in too?”

“How often do you give a damn? I want to be there to support your team when they figure it out. I might even hit the oncology floor. You know, give my patients a thrill.”

House snorted. “Just don’t plan on working this weekend to make up the time.”

Wilson, who’d probably been planning just that, winced. “I’m almost afraid to ask.”

“We’re going back to Lexington on Saturday,” House said, watching Wilson’s face as the smile drained away.

“That didn’t work out so well last time.”

House nodded. “That’s why we have to do it again. Come on,” he said, gesturing to Wilson’s car. “I don’t want you to make me late. My patient is waiting, you know.”

Wilson threw his hands up in exasperation, and followed.

*******************************************

“House! It’s freezing!” Wilson complained again, shifting from foot to foot in an attempt to get warm.

“Oh, don’t whine. We’re in the south. It’s practically tropical.” House removed his last sock and tossed it to the pile of clothes on the next headstone. Wilson's clothes, neatly folded, lay atop the stone on their left. December in Kentucky wasn’t House's idea of a good time to go streaking either, but Dad, even dead, could be an inconsiderate ass. “Besides, I have it on good authority that real men don’t mind the cold.”

“You okay?” Wilson asked for the umpteenth time that trip.

House ignored the question. He fidgeted with the boom box, hoping that his information was correct and the cemetery did not have night security. Getting arrested would screw up his plans. So far there was no sign of a watchman, though. Things were starting to go his way. He hadn’t fallen getting here either, though `the mud was worse than it had been last weekend.

Hula music poured out of the box. House could make out a large dark bird looking down at them from a cypress, probably pissed that its sleep had been interrupted. House grinned at it and began to sway. Wilson propped a flashlight up so they could see a little better. The bird cocked its head to watch.

After a second’s hesitation Wilson joined in. “I can’t believe you talked me into this,” he said, moving his goosebump-covered hips. “Is your—“

“If you ask me about my leg I’m going to beat you with my cane. Don’t shuffle! Bend your knees when you move.” House waited while Wilson got a decent rhythm going. Then he decided it was time to work on the next piece of the dance. “Now wave your arms too. Watch me.”

Wilson turned, still moving his hips, and watched House dance. Slowly he copied House’s movements, first the arms and hands, then the feet, then the knees, until they were moving in tandem.

Wilson loosened up, obviously feeling more confident. He started to look like he actually knew what he was doing. The dance kept them warm enough for comfort. He’d actually broken into the cemetery and was dancing naked on his father’s grave with his male lover beside him! If Dad could see him now! Imagining the sour expression on his father’s face, House had to smile. They danced through the end of the piece, when Wilson turned off the music and picked up their things. They dressed hurriedly.

“I still can’t believe you did that,” Wilson said as he burrowed into his coat. “I can’t believe I did that!”

The raven, or whatever it had been, was gone. There were only the faint sounds of the wind and the city to keep them company as they made their way back to the car. The ground was still bad. Wilson tucked his hand into the crook of House’s elbow, keeping him company and providing a counterweight when House lost his balance in the muck.

House closed the cemetery gates, clicking the very pickable lock shut behind them. Wilson was looking at him, a light in his eyes that House hadn't seen for weeks. He'd missed that.

House looked away. There was one last thing he had to do.

“We should--talk about the last few weeks,” he said. Ironically enough, a siren began to wail in the distance.

Wilson looked wary. “Go on.”

“I went way over the line,” House admitted. “Most people would have left me after Toronto. They’d definitely have left me after Lexington. That crack I made about your brother…” House looked down. “Anyone else would have decked me for that. But you—you knew it was coming out of neediness, and you loved it.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Wilson said, and the tightness in his voice told House everything he needed to know.

He felt a flash of regret. He’d been cruel.

Wilson sighed. “You needed to hurt me as badly as you could to see if I’d hurt you back. You figured if I didn’t hurt you then, I wouldn’t later. I get it. Just—don’t do that to me again.”

“What if I do?” _What if I can’t help it_?

House was staring at the pavement, but he heard Wilson’s soft, steady steps towards him. Hands turned him. His muscles clenched.

“Any idiot knows there are no lines with you," Wilson said softly, and House felt something heavy and tight in his chest start to melt away. "You invade every part of my life without any respect for my privacy or my wishes.” He closed his hands on House’s coat and tugged him forward. Wilson leaned his head against House’s and spoke quietly into his ear. “You throw everything you have at anything that interests you. If you do this again, I’ll put up with it again. I won’t like it, but we’ll be okay.”

House pulled Wilson tight against him. They stood there like that, holding to one another, until House realized that the siren had gotten louder. He broke away with a curse.

It was much, much louder.

"Come on!" Wilson grabbed House and dragged him to the car. Wilson hit the gas as House slammed his door closed.

"Cut the lights," was his only comment as Wilson careened out of the parking lot. The cop car was screaming towards them. House hoped they were too far away for the officer to make out the details of the car or license.

Wilson pulled out onto the road. "I'm not going to drive without headlights."

They passed an ancient Toyota, and a truck. Ahead was a group of five cars all traveling about the same speed. Wilson merged in with the pack. One of the cars was similar to theirs in size. A teenage boy was driving it, with four teenage passengers, three of them boys. That was good. House watched in the mirror as the cop pulled them over. Wilson continued on, driving a stately five miles an hour under the speed limit.

They drove straight for the airport like the fugitives they were.

As they neared the airport turnoff, a police car came up behind them and flashed its lights. Wilson pulled onto the shoulder. He lowered the window.

"Just let me handle this," he said to House.

"You sure? Because I know a guy--"

Wilson spared him a warning glare as the cop stalked over.

"License and registration?"

Wilson handed them over.

"Do you know why I pulled you over?"

"No, officer. Was I speeding?" His expression was befuddled and guileless. House resisted the urge to applaud.

The cop handed the documents back to Wilson and gestured at the rear of the car. "Busted tail light. You didn't notice?"

"No. Umm, no, we didn't."

The officer wrote up a ticket and handed it over, with a warning to pay on time. House waited carefully until the cop car had pulled away and turned to Wilson with a triumphant grin. They'd gotten away with it!

Wilson sat stiffly, staring straight ahead.

He couldn't actually be pissed, could he? After everything House had put him through, was he going to get angry over this?

Wilson rested his head on the steering wheel and started to gasp for breath. His shoulders were shaking.

This wasn't anger. Something was wrong. Initial possibilities flashed through House's mind--seizure, anaphylactic shock-

"Wilson!" House grabbed his shoulder and pulled him upright, needing to see, to assess everything.

He was laughing. The stupid son of a bitch was laughing.

Wilson’s eyes sparkled and his laughter spilled out loud. "I can't believe we almost got arrested," he gasped. "Again!"

"Oh, come on," House said, almost as angry at Wilson for scaring him as he was relieved that he was okay. "It wasn't that funny."

A tear rolled down Wilson's cheek. He tried to explain but could only force out a few words at a time, "The look on your mother's face…bail us out…never…she'd… buck naked!" Wilson stopped, laughing too hard to even try to speak any more.

Put that way, it was actually kind of funny. His mom had this face she used to make when House had embarrassed her in some particularly egregious way. As a boy he'd thought of it as her angry gopher face. He hadn't seen it in years, but he was pretty sure he'd have been treated to it if they'd been arrested for public indecency while dancing on Dad's grave.

Wilson collapsed against the steering wheel again. House let the sound of his laughter fill him, let his answering laugh break free, and thought he could do this forever.

 

End.


End file.
